After a long absence our cats are always very happy to see us so this weeks post will be featuring a lot of this guy

We just got a new couch for our library he has adopted it as his own. The library is getting a minor makeover with the addition of some decor from our universal trip along with this new couch. I’ll post a bit about that later this year.

But for now I’ve repainted and redecorated our guest bathroom.

First it was a matter of stripping it down to the bare walls. Including taking down the horrible contractors special mirror you tend to find stuck to the walls in bathrooms. You know the kind I mean; no frame, same width as the vanity. They are super uninviting.

As soon as I started edging I got a visit.

I wanted to see how high he would go. All the way was the answer, then he couldn’t figure out how to get down so I had to rescue him.

There was one little spot above the toilet I couldn’t reach even with the ladder. It’s what I get for having 10′ ceilings. Luckily Mr. Smith is a foot taller than I.

On to finishing touches

All the stuff I hauled out had to go right back in.

The Beemer approved our new towels.
And tah dah the bathroom isn’t so boring anymore

As you can see the mirror isn’t hung yet, it’s just propped up. But that’s the advantage to having a husband that’s over 6′ I’ll just make him do it 😛 .

And if your wondering about the title, yes this is our second bathroom redo (much easier than the first) and the second blue one. You can find the first by clicking here.

In order to match it to the rest of the installation I just removed a few of the pictures and used a paper similar to our wall color to give the impression of empty frames and did a couple maps and a couple metal inserts as well.

The hardest part of the whole process was the hanging bit.

Oh there is that barn door I was talking about.

Of course I had help, including help from the cat

But eventually it was done

And not too shabby if I do say so myself, you can see the barn door peeking out again here.

Hopefully Mr. Smith likes it when he finally gets back from his business trip

We started on a couple of new projects today. They are going to be in the works for a long time, mostly because we are still working on getting settled into our new house.

One of them is this old mid-century modern dresser that was passed down to me from my great grand mother.

We actually have the set but the dresser is going to be our new entertainment center, believe it or not.

I just removed a couple of the drawers that are a little worse for ware.

See it’s better already,

Used a hole saw to cut a few holes for components in the backer board. Or let Mr. Smith do so, since hole saws terrify me after my father almost lost a finger to one.

And voila

I plan on painting the top, sides, and bottom boards, as well as the vertical support in the middle. Then I’ll refinish the drawer fronts and feet and stain them a darker wood color to match the other furniture in the house. Im still not sure what color I’ll paint the exterior. I might go with the same TARDIS blue the side table is. What do you think?

I’ll save the other project we started on for a later post. It’s going to be quite a doosie in the long run.

Keeping it short and simple this week. I stained a little letter using a fun and easy technique.

For this project I used a little monogram from target but if you have a good scroll or jig saw you can make your own shapes.

I drew out what design I wanted in chalk first but then decided just to wing it

Using a small brush I painted the design on using plain old wood glue, nothing special just elmers.

Let the glue dry thoroughly

Then apply a thin coat of a dark stain (or at least darker than the natural wood tone) and quickly buff off any excess

Voila your pattern is left natural.

It’s a quick and easy way to add detail to a project and it’s pretty versatile as well. If you’re not comfortable free handing a pattern you can always mask off a geometric pattern like stripes or chevrons.

After the little paintings I did a few weeks ago I thought I might experiment some more with painting on canvas. I should preface this with the fact that it was an all around bad idea

The problem is I have no idea what I’m doing when it comes to painting canvas. I can paint on faces, you will get to see more of that next week but paint and canvas baffles me.

I’m not sure what brushes blend well, as was the case with this first experiment. I’m pretty sure the brush I used was too stiff, so I got some strange brush strokes going on.

I’m not really sure what order to put colors down in, this was also a problem with this painting. Hint; don’t try to put the blue of your sky over the yellow of your sunset or you end up with a strange green sky.

So the whole thing has been a process of learning through experimentation.

But you guys are allowed to see my failures as well as my successes.

I also experimented a bit with watered down acrylics the technique was cool even though I really had no control over anything

It’s not terrible, I just don’t really like how the little cartoony mermaid subject looks… I should have known I’m just not good at figures. I’ve still got four canvases to play with so if anyone has any tips or blogs they recommend they would be greatly appreciated.